Celestia Forums

Greetings! First-time poster and user of Celestia here. I'm interested in modelling what the night sky would have looked like at certain places in the Caribbean during certain times of the 1850s. I've never used Celestia, but I have read through some of the tutorials and FAQs, which have given me the impression that Celestia is the right tool for the job, and I've come to the forum to see whether this is true before I plunge down the rabbit hole. Is historical modelling of the sort described above an "out-of-the-box" feature of Celestia, or would it involve considerable scripting and configuration?

Celestia doesn't support proper motion of stars, so i don't think it suits your needs.

grad_student wrote:Greetings! First-time poster and user of Celestia here. I'm interested in modelling what the night sky would have looked like at certain places in the Caribbean during certain times of the 1850s. I've never used Celestia, but I have read through some of the tutorials and FAQs, which have given me the impression that Celestia is the right tool for the job, and I've come to the forum to see whether this is true before I plunge down the rabbit hole. Is historical modelling of the sort described above an "out-of-the-box" feature of Celestia, or would it involve considerable scripting and configuration?

You should be able to do this by setting the appropriate date and time (Time -> Set Time), then going to Earth's surface at the appropriate location (Navigation -> Goto Object, then Ctrl+G to go to the surface). You can then press Ctrl+F (alt-azimuth mode) to more easily move around.

As onetwothree notes, Celestia does not simulate proper motion of stars, but that shouldn't be a problem for the time range you're interested in.

Question.

Could @grad_student use something like

https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/hipparcos/high-proper-motion

to create an addon which would adjust the positions of high proper motion stars?
The list above is the top twenty, but more extensive lists should be available.
I realize the target period would have to put in ahead of time, but perhaps that would give a starting point.


Janus.